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This question has come up a few times recently. One person asked how to compare 2 SQL statements at Open World. In fact, they claimed if I could show them how to do it, it would make the trip to San Francisco worth every penny. Don’t be surprised they left extremely satisfied 🙂 Then just yesterday, someone else asked how …

Hansel and Gretel are in the forest and don’t want to get lost, so Gretel leaves a trail of white pebbles to mark their way. In future adaptations of this Bros. Grimm story, the white pebbles have become ‘breadcrumbs.’ So what does this have to do with SQL Developer? When working with large bits of PL/SQL code, you now have …

Have you heard of Oracle Designer? Perhaps you even still use it? Designer incorporates support for business process modeling, systems analysis, software design and system generation. I don’t want to get you too excited, because this technology is being phased out. You can read the official statement of direction here, but but going forward we’re recommending you use JDeveloper, Fusion, …

If you’re browsing your packages using the Connections panel, you have a nice tree navigator to click around your packages and your variable, procedure, and functions. But What if you drill into your PL/SQL source from the worksheet and don’t have the Tree expanded? Let’s say you’re working on your script, something like – So I need to reacquaint myself …

Version 3.2.1 included a few tweaks along with several hundred bug fixes. One of those tweaks was the addition of ‘ALL_SOURCE’ as a selection for the Type drop down in the Find Database Object panel. Searching the database for your code or objects can be expensive. The ALL_SOURCE view comes in pretty handy when I want to demo how to …

Our stored procedures often capture information and store that data as a string or number. But sometimes we need to process more than just a single value. PL/SQL allows you to do this via collections. Now, if you’re looking for help getting started with collections, I would start with Using PL/SQL Collections and Records Oracle Docs The PL/SQL Guru, Steven …

After presenting the SQL Developer PL/SQL debugger for about an hour yesterday at KScope12 in San Antonio, my boss came up and asked, “Now, would you really want to know what the Smart Data panel does?” Apparently I had ‘made up’ my own story about what that panel’s intent is based on my experience with it. Not good Jeff, not …

I know this sounds like a REALLY weird question for many of you. Let me make one thing clear right away though, I am NOT talking about creating and replacing PLSQL objects directly into a production environment. Do we really need to talk about developers in production again? No, what I am talking about is a developer doing their work …

Everyone knows that SQL Developer has a PL/SQL debugger – check! Everyone also knows that it’s only setup for debugging standalone PL/SQL objects like Functions, Procedures, and Packages, right? – NO! SQL Developer can also debug your Stored Java Procedures AND it can debug your standalone PLSQL blocks. These bits of PLSQL which do not live in the database are …

I’ve answered this question a few times over the past several months, but I’m just now getting around to putting my answer onto ‘paper.’ The common scenario is someone decides to alter a table. Immediately the paranoid – is it really paranoia if someone is actually out to get you? – start to worry about how many programs they’ve just …